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By a 50 to 46 vote at 8:16 Wednesday night in Washington, D.C, the Honorable Cristina D. Silva received confirmation to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Nevada.

Judge Silva knew the vote was coming and tried to get home in time to watch it; but the vote came early and she heard the good news in her car instead. It was an exciting moment for Judge Silva. “I am truly humbled by the confirmation. It has been my honor to serve the State of Nevada as a District Court Judge. My thanks to Governor Sisolak for my appointment in 2019, and the citizens of Nevada for my retention in 2020. I look forward to continuing my career as a public servant,” said Judge Silva.

The Senate yesterday also confirmed Prof. Anne Rachel Traum as a district judge for the U.S. District of Nevada. “We are delighted that these two highly accomplished individuals will join us as district judges,” said U.S. District Judge for the District of Nevada Chief Judge Miranda Du.

Judge Silva was appointed to serve for the Eighth Judicial District Court, Department IX, in March 2019. She presided over both civil and criminal matters.

“We congratulate Judge Cristina Silva on her confirmation to the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. Judge Silva has been an outstanding jurist for the Eighth Judicial District Court. She will continue to serve our state well as a member of the federal judiciary” Eighth Judicial District Court Chief Judge Linda Marie Bell

After receiving her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law and her B.A. from Wellesley College, where she double majored in Political Science and Spanish, Judge Silva dedicated herself to public service.

Judge Silva began her legal career as an Assistant State Attorney at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office where she quickly moved up the ranks to become the Assistant Chief of Litigation of the Domestic Violence Unit. After relocating to Nevada in 2011, she applied that experience toward successfully prosecuting a wide range of cases involving violence, drugs, and financial-based crimes for the United States Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada. During her tenure as an AUSA, she served as the Deputy Chief to the Organized Crime Strike Force overseeing several programs including Project Safe Neighborhoods, Project Safe Childhood, Organized Crime and Gangs, and Human Trafficking. In 2017, she was awarded the Community Impact Award by the National Latino Peace Officers Association for her efforts combatting violent crime in the Las Vegas Valley. Her commitment to her work and her community earned her the position of Chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada. She was the first woman and Latina appointed to that position.

Judge Silva serves on the board of the Las Vegas Latino Bar Association and is an active member of the Southern Nevada Association of Women Attorneys. She is also a member of the Clark County Bar Association, the Hispanic National Bar Association (HBNA), and the Federal Bar Association. In March of 2019, she was named a Top Attorney Under 40 by the HBNA, and was recognized as a 2019 Legal Elite for her work as a Government Attorney by Nevada Business Magazine.

Professor Traum has been a professor of law and associate dean for experiential legal education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law, where she has taught since 2008. At the law school, Prof. Traum directed the Appellate Clinic, which she founded in 2009, and co-directed the Misdemeanor Clinic, which she co-founded in 2018. Previously, she served as special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Access to Justice. Before joining UNLV, Prof. Traum served as an assistant federal public defender for the District of Nevada and an assistant U.S. attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, Civil Division.
 
Prof. Traum received her Bachelor of Arts, with honors in history, from Brown University in 1991 and received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in 1996. She was instrumental in establishing the Nevada Appellate Pro Bono Program in 2013 and chaired the Nevada Board of Indigent Defense Services from 2020 to 2021. She was elected fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers in 2020. 

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